Interview with Blanche Barrow Pyle

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Interview with Blanche Barrow Pyle for the Harford County Oral History Project, by Mary Louise Pr-ice, March 14,
1974. fei5
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PRICE: This is Mary Louise k-fee speaking. It's March 14, 1974, a chilly, windy March day. I'm sitting with Blanche Pyle in her dining room window looking out over the garden at her private home in Bel Air. This afternoon we would like to talk about some of Mrs. Pyle's reminiscences and her knowledge about what happened in Harford County many years agp. Mrs. Pyle, you lived first near Thomas Run?
PYLE: Thomas Run. Then we moved to the Hickory.
NP: You lived at Thomas Run until you were about six years old?
BP: Yeah. -
NP: Thomas Run, what was it like then?
BP: Just about like it is now. Well, now, Cool Spring is over from Thomas Run. Right where Thomas Run is, where the farm, the farm that I was born on, it's just about the same.
NP: You were born on what farm?
BP: The Judge Waters farm.
NP: What did your father do there?
BP: He oversaw the fan. He was overseer for Judge
Waters. Judge Waters was judge of Harford County. NP: What kind of farming was it at that time? You had animals?
BP: Yes. They didn't have dairy cows.
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NP: So they didn't have dairy cows. What did they raise?
BP: They raised hogs and had cows for their own use and they raised corn and wheat. There wasn't any [unclear] raised those days. Of course, they raised their food, their garden.
NP: And did you grew your own wheat? Did you have to give some of that to Judge Waters? Did you split it?
EP: Oh, yes. He got paid for his work.
NP: Your father did.
BP: Yes.
NP: Plus he got his own stock to raise his own garden. BP: Oh, yes, and he had his own meat.
NP: He didn't have to give any of his things to Judge Waters.
BP: Oh, no.
NP: I see. But he did take care of the farm for him. You said you grew more wheat in those days.
BP: Than they do today. See, not everybody raises wheat
today. There was a lot of people raised wheat in those days. As I say, they raised wheat and always had to try to be done harvesting by the 4th of July and then after the wheat got good and dry they had the thrasher to come in and thrash.
NP: What was the thrasher like?
BP: It was like an engine. You've seen an engine like
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cars have, railroads.
MP: Oh, a big railroad engine.
BP: Right. Not as big, but that's what it was similar to. It burned coal and if they got down thrashing one day, they'd move up the next day ready to set up, ready to start early morning because it generally took the morning.
MP: And you paid that man to bring his thrasher around. BP: Oh, yes, you paid. I don't have any idea how much. MP: And he brought his men with him?
BP: No, you got your neighbors. The neighbors helped
and then when they had theirs to do, they exchanged help. That's the way it was harvested those days. They didn't pay people. They didn't have the
money. There wasn't that much money in farming.
NP: I see. Now, these thrashers, they didn't take those around to the fields.
BP: Oh, no, they set it up at the barn.
MP: Near the barn.
BP: They set it on what they called the bridgeway, like a driveway and then they set it up and thrashed. As I say, it would take them--it really depended on the crop they had. If you had a big acreage it would take longer and, of course, you fed the thrashers. They were neighbors, you fed them.
NP: You had a big dinner at noon.
BP: Yes.
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NP: And then what happened to the wheat then? You had the wheat and the straw.
BP: It was put in a bin in the barn and you kept it stirred so it wouldn't heat and the straw was put in a mound.
NP: You didn't bale the straw.
BP: No, there was no such thing as a baler those days. NP: Your father used all that equipment that used horses.
BP: Yes, horses and mules.
NP: Did you have riding horses?
EP: Oh, no. You rode your farm horses if you were
riding. -
NP: Then when you wanted to go some place --
BP: You had a horse and buggy. You hooked the horse up to the buggy. Or a mule. Yes, my daddy had mules, Old Jack and Jill, I called them.
NB: And I had to ride the mule to work in the garden. NP: I see. The church was there then. You lived near the church at Thomas Run.
BP: Yes, the church was there.
NP: Were there a lot of people that went to the church at Thomas Run? There are not too many people around Thomas Run now.
BP: No, that is what the church was sold. The farms were sold and all the people moved were Catholics and of course, the would attend the Methodist
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Church. They drove from Thomas Run to Hickory to church. Where the Lockerys live and we would be going to Thomas Run, we'd meet the Lockereys going to St. Ignatius at the Hickory, and I remember hearing grandfather saying why couldn't we just go there and they go down here. But that wasn't the thing.
NP: That was after you'd moved to Hickory.
BP: Yes.
NP: Who serviced the church then? It was on the Methodist circuit?
BP: Well, we had the Baltimore Conference sent a minister there and they generally stayed four years. NP: Where did they live?
BP: In Darlington. The parsonage was in Darlington and he served Thomas Run, Rock Run and Darlington. NP: You had services every Sunday?
EP: Yes, had church every Sunday. He'd come to Thomas Run in the morning and the afternoon Rock Run and I guess at night in Darlington.
NP: What was the service like then? You had Sunday School, did you?
BP: Had Sunday School before the service, and the preacher preached a sermon just like today, and then in June when school was closed, we all had a little entertainment and had Children's Day.
NP: Oh, that sounds good. What was that?
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BP: Well, the children would recite suer pieces and they'd have songs and then generally in the latter part of July when the harvesting was over, we'd have a strawberry and ice cream festival.
NP: Oh, yummy. How did you do that? Did you all have your own strawberries?
BP: Well, some people had their own strawberries. We bought the ice cream.
NP: You didn't make it?
BP: No. Well, there might have been somebody. Set the tables out and everybody made cake and homemade candy and cake and sodas. And we hung Japanese lanterns all up along for lights. Had no electric. There was no electric there as yet.
NP: Is that right?
BP: Oh, yes, and then just before school would start, we'd have our Sunday School picnic. One year I remember very well our Sunday School teacher was having the Sunday School picnic.
NP: Who was that?
EP: Who was she? She was Mrs. Florence Nagle, N-A-G-L-E. she had it at her house and her oldest son was Steuart. Of course, he was in our class, too. They decided to make homemade ice cream, the students and had peaches. He had just started to take music lessons and all he would do is sit and play "Work for the Night is Coming," and they
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churned ice cream all day and it didn't get hard
yet. But everybody had a good time.
NP: Oh, I'm sure you did. So you had three or four
socials during the year.
BP: Yes.
NP: Did you have dances or anything?
BP: No. No, no, that was very much against the
religion.
NP: You didn't have that.
MB: Christmas entertainment.
ME: Oh, you had Christmas entertainment. Well, that
sounds very much like what goes on at Thomas Run now
because--when do you have services there? -
BP: May and September.
NP: This church was built when?
BP: This one is 1782.
NP: And there was one there before that.
BP: Yes, 1770. It was logged down. There's mounds of
logs up the woods. I'll tell you right exactly
where [unclear] is. I have a copy of it, but I'm
not able to read it. [unclear]
ME': You have always been interested in the church
because you've always gone to that church.
BP: Yeah, sure.
NP: A few years ago, though, the Thomas Run Foundation
was started. Now, what is that?
BP: Ten years ago. Lester and I bought the church
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because the conference wanted no longer to have the expense of it. Now, I don't know what the expense would be, but they wouldn't supply a minister to it.
NP: There weren't enough people, either.
BP: No, it was only two people to go and they couldn't afford to pay a minister. After we bought it, John Parks was concerned. He said, "Well, the thing for you to do is to form a foundation so you won't have taxes." That's what we did. It's all written up. It's all in black and white.
NP: So that when you have your services in the last Sunday in May and the last Sunday in September, you
have a little celebration and people come back.
BP: Yes, there's different people. Every service you meet somebody that never has been before, and all that collection money goes into the foundation. In the meantime, there's donations sent in.
NIP: You still have sometimes burials there. There's a cemetery.
BP: Yes, we've had three since last July.
NP: Is the church changed on the inside?
BP: No.
NP: Same everything?
BP: It's just the same, except the stoves. Now, the
first stoves were potbelly coal stoves. Of course, they wore out and now we have the regular sheet iron stoves.
PYLE 9
NP: I'll always remember that gallery upstairs there.
They called it the slave gallery. Was it really
that?
BP: Yes, yes.
NP: What's that are in the front of it you were telling
me about?
BP: Where the organ is is the choir.
NP: Oh, that was the choir corner.
BP: Yes, on the right where the organ is.
NP: And what was the left hand for?
BP: That was where the dignitaries of the church, the
superintendent of Sunday School and trustees of the
church. You know, there had to be trustees. -
NP: And they sat up there. What was this amen thing?
BP: It's just where they had these three seats. That's
where they sat, to be up front to answer any
questions that they asked them.
NP: And they were then allowed to.
BP: Oh, yes. They could speak their piece.
NP: I see. The Sunday School was taught in the church?
BP: Oh, yes.
NP: And who taught it?
BP: Some of the mothers of the children that were there
in the class.
NP: You went to Sunday School at 9:30.
BP: Yes, that's when we went. Church started at 10:00.
Then we got out 12:00, then we went home and had
PYLE 10
lunch. My grandmother was very religious. She didn't cook a meal on Sunday. The Sunday meal was cooked on Saturday. On Sunday we had cold dinner. You probably could get a cup of coffee, if you drank it.
NP: You lived in Thomas Run until you were six and after that your father, you and your sister Mame--your father's name is Cornelius Barrow--and you all moved to Hickory.
BP: Yes.
NP: What was moving like? You don't remember?
BP: In a horse and a wagon. Had a horse and wagon and moved the furniture in that. There was no such thing as a moving van or anything you could find. Of course, the neighbors come to help you move.
MB: We moved the black cat, I recall.
BP: I remember very well we had a black cat and he was black as tar and we called him "Coon." I think he lived to be about 17 years.
NP: You had to move him on moving day. That would be
very important to a six year old. Your father bought this farm in Hickory, though.
BP: We grandfather bought it. He gave it to my father.
MI': And why did he buy it, your grandfather?
BP: Well, he bought it because it was being sold.
MI': Why was it being sold?
BP: Because the people couldn't keep the taxes up, I
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suppose.
NP: Why, were they hard times then?
BP: Oh, yes. Years ago a lot of places were sold for taxes.
NP: What year was this when he bought that farm? Was it about 1900's era?
BP: Tom was born in 1897. About 1896 is when we moved there. Now, the barn that's on the place was built in 1892.
NP: You know that then. That house is older than that? BP: Oh, yes, it's old, but it's been remodeled. In 1929 Tom remodeled it.
NP; torn was your brother? -
BP: Yes, closed the back porch in.
NP: What was the original house then?
BP: It's the same. [unclear] or the front porch.
NP: When you were six years old did you go to school?
Now you lived in Hickory.
BP: Yes, I went to school to the Hickory. You walked a
mile and it was a dirt road. You carried your
lunch.
NP: Who was the teacher?
BP: Ida Curtis was my first grade teacher and she was a
Quaker.
NP: What did you study?
BP: Stuff they study today. ABC's.
NP: You studied the ABC's.
PYLE 12
BP: Sure, and your letters, how to spell. We had a big iron potbellied stove in the center of the room and you had two boys that carried the coal in and there was was two assigned to carry the water. The water was carried a quarter of a mile, I would say, to the school and set in the vestibule on a bench. There was a basin there with a bar of soap you could wash your hands in. Everybody drank out of the same dipper, nobody died. Then when school started, I would say there was attendance of about 40. Then after canning was over --
MP: After canning was over.
BP: Yes. There was one family that had a cannery, canned tomatoes.
HP: Who was that?
EP: Silver over on Johnsons Mill Road. The chlidren worked in the canning house. Some of themselves. They didn't have much outside help. Then they would start into school after the attendance got up to 70 they'd get an assistant to teach. She would sit in the back of the room and the principal was up
front. We had black boards and chalk to write with and when school took in at 9:00, they had an organ and somebody played a march. The children marched around the school house and took their seats, and when they took their seats they had the Lord's prayer and then they had exercises and had a song,
PYLE 13
always sang a sang. Of course, Thanksgiving we had holidays. Christmas time you had a Christmas entertainment before school closed for the Christmas holidays. The school had a library.
NP: Where was the library, on one of the walls?
BP: Had a bookcase. There was one in each corner. One was the library and the other was for the school books. The teacher had the desk in the center of the room and she would write on the board what your studies would be, and on Friday was mental arithmetic and penmanship. You had copy books and you could hear a pin fall. You had to write lines
that were in the copy books. -
NP: You'd use pen and ink.
BP: Yes, you had pen and ink. The desks were double and had an ink well in the center and you had to keep watching the ink because it dried. You had to keep dipping it in all the time. Then one big event was Arbor Day and that was always the first Friday in April and we always planted a tree and named it for somebody.
NP: An important person?
BP: Yes.
NP: Are those trees still there?
BP: I don't think so. I know that the place has been
sold. That's where Phillip's TV is. No, there's none of those trees there. When we went to school
PYLE 14
there was a big cherry tree. It was there as long
as I can remember. Used to have cherries on it. NP: It was planted by the children?
BP: I don't know when it was planted. Then by the coal house--we had to have a coal house to keep the coal in--one end of it was the boy's room and the girls had a little outhouse up on the other side. By the coal house was an apple tree. It had [unclear] apples on it. They were the best apples.
NP: I took a few, I can tell. They were for everybody to eat?
BP: Yes, everybody had them.
HP: Who paid the teacher? -
BP: The county, same as they do now.
NP: It was a county school?
BP: But they didn't get paid like they do now. They got
paid every three months.
NP: You don't know how much they got paid, do you? BP: They didn't get very much.
HP: And they were always women.
BP: Yes, we never had a man teacher. Mr. Charles
Wright--now that would be Ben Gross's wife's father--was school superintendent and once a year, maybe twice, he would come around to see how they were behaving and the school needed, and you were scared to death when he walked in the door. But he never bothered you. He would make some comment and
PYLE 15
tell some things he thought. Then after he died, or after he resigned, I guess, it was Mr. Milton Wright and Mr. Milton Wright's still living.
NP: That's right. Did you have recess? What did you play?
BP: Oh, drop the handkerchief, and crack the whip, and hide and seek. That was about all because we only had fifteen minutes.
NP: For recess.
BP: Yeah, and at dinner time you ate your dinner and then you had a little time to play then.
NP: What time did school let out then?
BP: 4:00. You took in at 9:00 and you got out at 10:30 for recess; you got out at 12:00 for lunch hour; took in at 1:00 and at 2:30 the first three grades went home. At 4:00 the other grades went home, and I mean you went home. You walked. In bad weather my daddy took us and sometimes the neighbors would take us, and take the other children.
NP: And did he take you in that buggy?
BP: Yes.
NP: That buggy you called a what?
BP: A Dayton.
NP: A Dayton. What kind of a buggy is that?
BP: Well, it was a two-seated affair. Like a buggy only
it had two seats. You'd have to ride in one to see what a buggy looked like.
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NP: Alright. But it has fringe you told me.
BP: It did. Well, several years go when--I don't know whether you got rid of the buggy or what, but I said I wanted the wheel, and I had it out here in the yard. It was painted and took care of it, but it finally fell to pieces. Margie Lee wanted one to show Wilbur because she would never know what it was, but I think Wilbur has seen enough to know what the wheels on a buggy was like or a wagon.
NP: Your mother then took care of the house and there
were three children. What were her duties like? Did you have to help her?
BP: Oh, yes. We had our turns. When we went home from school we helped with the dishes and carried in the wood, feed the chickens. You burned wood, you didn't have electric. In the suer time you had an oil stove. Then they built the Conawingo Road, the road to the pike now, why we took boarders.
NP: You did?
BP: Grown men, yes. Got three dollars a week.
NP: For board.
BP: Yes.
NP: You had to feed them, too.
BP: Sure, that's what we had to do. That was thirty
yeas ago, I reckon, Mane.
MB: No, it's not that long.
NP: Sc, they stayed there with you.
PYLE 17
BP: Yeah, while they worked on the road.
NP: And your father did the farming. What kind of farm did he have, same kind?
BP: Yeah, he raised corn. We did use use to raise wheat and oats and hogs and had cows for our own use. NP: Did your mother have to go shopping very often? EP: We had chickens.
MB: You went to the country store. You went to the country and you took your basket of eggs. You would trade them off for what they had at the store. Now, you didn't get these things in the store like they do now. In the fall you buried your cabbage and your turnips and you had your potatoes and you canned your tomatoes and that's what you lived on through the winter. You didn't have--you would get bananas and oranges at Christmas time but that other would be a luxury.
NP: You had a root cellar then,is that what you're saying?
BP: Yes, some people had root cellars.
NP: And where else could you bury them?
BP: Just bury it in the ground somewhere. Dig a hole, cover it over with dirt, lay boards around over or sod or something to keep it warn. I remember very well Burt and Aunt El--that was my father's sister--and my mother had saved a big basket of eggs and went down to county to the store. That was a
PYLE 18
big store where they had dried goods and a little more than the store at the Hickory, and they got nine cents a dozen for them. I think there was about 14 dozen. Now, that was a big price for eggs.
NP: And what could she trade for that?
BP: Well, sugar and spices, see. Of course, she had her own butter.
NP: And what about cloths?
BP: You made your cloths.
NP: You had to buy your fabric.
BP: You had to buy the material to make them out of, but
you never had any ready made cloths.
MB: My mother was a dress maker.
BP: Yeah, my mother was a dress maker. Now, do you know where that Beshore's place of business is now? NP: lJh-huh.
BP: Well, there was a house there and that was where Miss Peggy Bond lived and she taught my mother dress making.
NP: Oh, I see, and your mother made cloths for people.
BP: She was a dress maker. She didn't after she was married, only our own. But when you live on a farm and have work to do, you didn't have time to sew for other people. Now, then, at the Hickory where the garage now is was a long store. Now, they kept tobacco and, of course, all the men chewed tobacco those days, smoked. Then one end of the store was
PYLE 19
the post office. Now, there was no mail delivery and we would get the mail when we'd go home from school. Then next to the store was a man was a shoe maker. Then down the hill from the store there was a blacksmith shop.
NP: You had everything you needed.
BP: Yes.
NP: Shoes for you and shoes for the horses. Is that where you went to have your shoes made?
BP: No, I didn't ever have to wear homemade shoes. We could go to Eel Air to get some bought shoes. There was a shoe store those days.
NP: I see. You didn't have to buy very much then. You pretty well had what you needed at home and your mother sounds very self-sufficient.
BP: Well, we canned stuff. Of course, we had fruit
trees on the place, had plum trees and peaches, apples.
NP: I know something else your mother did, and that was quilt because she taught you to do that and you've taught me to do that.
EP: No, she didn't do much cooking. I learned to make a quilt square. She showed me how to do that, but I never remember her --
NP: Well, who taught you to quilt, then?
BP: There was a lady, an old maid that went around that had a hard time and she went around and quilted and
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showed people how to quilt.
NP: You know how to quilt because your mother had a
quilting frame, or did you grandfather make that one
for you?
BP: That was my grandfather on my father's side that
made that quilting frame.
NP: Was he the carpenter?
BP: Yes.
NP: And where did he live?
BP: He lived on Eighty Road.
NP: What was his name?
BP: James.
NP: James Barrow. -
BP: Yes.
NP: Did your sister and everybody help make a quilt, or
was it just you?
BP: No, I just pieced it myself.
[end of side 11
NP: I'm continuing to talk to Mrs. Pyle this afternoon
about her remembrances of her early years. We were
talking about quilting and she remembers a quilt
that--who was that you made that with?
BP: Lizzie Watters. I suppose she made it and gave it
to my mother because she had twins and it was for the crib. Then later years after I was married and had Elizabeth, she gave it to me. It was red and white, the man part was red and white squares with
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white muslin and the other you could tell pieces that was left from scraps of sewing. We didn't buy it. It seems to me the under piece, like you have for the muslin, was added, which you could buy those days.
NP: What was that called?
BP: Outem.
NP: Outem, and what was the quilt stuffed with?
BP: Cotton.
NP: Cotton batting, same as you have now. Where did you
work on quilts in those days? Did you have a special room or in a big main room?
BP: Whereever they had room. I think when Allie Tredway did it, she did it upstairs, didn't she Mame, or just in the dining room? She tied them. She used to do a lot.
NP: Most people just made their own quilts for themselves. They wouldn't do it for anybody else. BP: Oh, yes.
NP: Other things had to be done around the house, though. You were saying that your father used to butcher hogs in the fall.
BP: Yes, always butchered around November, as soon as the weather got cold enough.
NP: Why did it have to be cold?
BP: Well, you didn't have an ice house or any place cold to put them. You had to have it cold for the meat
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to be solid so you could cut it, else it would be soft and flabby and hard to work with.
NP: So you left it outside because you didn't have any refrigeration inside.
BP: No. We made the lard, had a lard press and you had a sausage stuffer. We used to clean the entrails of the hog and then soak them, and then stuff the sausage in that. Then you got [unclear] where it would be cold and freezing,
NP: Did he butcher by himself?
BP: Some of the neighbors helped. "I'm going to butcher tomorrow," and they'd come. Lots of time they liked to do it on Saturday. Then it would hang over until Monday and then they'd cut it up. Then the buys would have the meat to get the butchering out of the way because when butchering was on, you didn't want to have to stop and do other things.
NP: What exactly happened when they butchered?
BP: You kill the hogs and scald and [unclear]. And build a fire and boil the water.
NP: Did you have a big kettle?
BP: Had a big kettle or a tub and used to have stones, put stone in the middle to keep it hot and that would scald it and scrape the hair off of them. Then cut them open, take the insides out.
NP: Then did you have to season it or just cut it up? BP: Oh, yes, when you got it all cut up ready to make
PYLE 23
your sausage you weighed it. You added so much salt and so much pepper per pound and seasoned it.
NP: And then what did you do with it? You hung it? You made scrapple, too.
BP: We used the liver and scraps which wouldn't grind through for sausage. You would kick it.
NP: Is that why it was called scrapple because you used the scraps?
BP: Yes.
NP: I never knew that. Did they hang it up in a smoke
house or something? Did everybody have a smoke house?
BP: Most people had a place to hang it.
ME': Did you do beef, too?
BP: Once in a great while we got a half of a beef and the weather was cold enough then that you could hang it up outside. I remember very well having a half a beef hung up over the dairy where it was cold and the weather was right. Mother would go out with her butcher knife and cut off a slab and round a steak and it would have ice on it. It was good. It was fit to eat, but you don't get that now, I'll tell you.
ME': Not the same taste.
BP: No. But that was a luxury. Not everybody did it. ME': So most people ate [unclear].
Yes, and you ate your own chickens.
PYLE 24
NP: They had things like poultry. Did you have
[unclear]. Mostly you had your own fruits and vegetables canned in the summer.
BP: Yes. You'd eat it all summer and then you'd eat it
all winter. You'd get beef once in awhile if you'd come to buy it at the butcher shop. Then a few years after that there used to be a man running around, and you would hear him coming ringing his bell. You had to go up to the road if you wanted a piece of beef. You'd buy it off the wagon.
NP: I wonder how much it cost then.
BP: It wasn't very high then. Fifteen or twenty cents, maybe.
MP: For a pound. But hogs were the major kind of meat.
In the smoke houses, would you build a fire in there?
BP: You had it built so that it wouldn't blaze. It just smothered.
MP: Was there a hole in the floor?
BP: It was a dirt floor. You kept it smothered. You
know, if you burn trash outside sometimes how your fire won't blaze? Well, that's the way you lite it. You ought to use hickory wood because it made the best smoke, and sawdust.
NP: How long did you have to let it smoke? Did you keep the fire going for days or weeks?
BP: It depended on how much you wanted it smoked, how
PYLE 25
much you wanted to taste of the smoke. Mother didn't care for heavily smoked meat. Of course, now you can buy hickory smoked.
NP: How times have changed
BP: And the people, too.
NP: Do you really think they have?
BP: Yeah,
NP: Were they more friendly then?
BP: Well, yes and no. Now, when my grandparents lived on my mother's side, she always had one day a week you hooked up to the buggy and go with her mother Sunday afternoon. Grandfather would shoe the horse if it was necessary to be shod.
NP: One afternoon a week. Did you get to go, too?
BP: Oh, yes, if it was summertime, but not in the school days. I didn't get to stay home from school because we went to school. We did everything on Saturday after we got our pants washed and our dusting done and the chores that we had to do.
NP: What kind of furniture did you have?
BP: We had furniture good enough to sit down on.
NP: I mean, did you have wood furniture, upholstery furniture? Did your grandfather who was a carpenter make it? He wasn't a cabinet maker.
BP: Oh, no. The furniture up home [unclear], some of them and they bought them.
NP: Or their parents gave it to them. How did you buy
PYLE 26
furniture then? Were there stores? When your mother bought it.
BP: Well, people would have a fair and you'd go to the fair and [unclear]
NY: You had coal oil lamps and it was your job to wash it. Was that a big job?
EP: It was a good job. The lamps if you'd turn them up
a little bit they'd smoke and you'd have to put them in water and wash them all out. You put the coal oil in because there was more than one. We had them in the dining room. We didn't sit in the living room then. It got cold. You didn't sit in that room. We had a coal stove and the kitchen stove.
NP: Is that what you called the family room?
BP: Yes.
NP: Did you call it the family room?
BP: No, we called it the dining room.
NP: And that was where you sat most of the time.
BP: Yes.
NP: Was the kitchen big?
BP: Yes, the kitchen was a fair size. We always ate in
the kitchen; we never ate in the dining room. That
was just for company.
NP: Did you have company often?
BP: No, only once in awhile.
NP: The preacher came once in awhile, but you had to be
good then.
PYLE 27
BP: He'd come and he'd bring his horse and we'd have to feed it, feed him and then if you had anything left he'd want some to take home with him.
NP: Oh, really. Good cooking, I bet.
BP: But that wasn't our preacher too much. That was the preacher from [unclear].
NP: Did your mother teach you to cook and can?
BP: Oh, I learned most of it. I never picked up much cooking till after I got married.
NP: You weren't home then when they got telephone and electricity and all that?
BP: No.
NP: What about cars, automobiles? -
BP: Tom had a car.
NP: Your brother.
BP: Yes, he bought a car and then we got a car.
NP: Was that fun?
BP: Oh, yes.
NP: Do you remember when you were a little girl seeing
them?
BP: A Model-T and you had to crank it many a time. I
started to drive when I was 28 and I never had an accident, but I was stopped along the road one time to get flowers and a car come off the highway and come over and hit my car, but nobody was hurt. But we never got a darn thing out of that. It was a stolen car and they stopped in John Billaday's
Garage down Bel Air Route and [unclear].
NP: Oh, that's too bad. When you lived at home your mother had a garden evidently.
BP: Oh, yes. We had strawberries.
NP: You had strawberries, too. Did you donate them for the strawberry ice cream social?
BP: No, because the strawberries would be gone. They were in May and we didn't have the strawberry festival till late July, first of August when the harvesting would be over. That would be when you'd have it. I remember very well one time there was one lady brought a bunch of flowers and they sold everything that was left there on the table, and I remember I thought they were the prettiest flowers I ever saw and I wanted that bunch of flowers so bad and she got them for fifteen cents. I'll tell you what they was, they was Abgeranium Pansies.
NP: Did your mother grow flowers, too?
BP: Oh, yes, she always grew flowers. Used to be a great thing with dahlias.
NP: So that's how you learned to garden. You still have a beautiful garden every year.
BP: Thank you.
MP: You still have a pretty garden every year and you still do your own canning.
BP: Well, I heard one yesterday. There was a lady, an older lady than I that has a garden and the lady was
PYLE 29
looking out and she she saw her in the garden. She knew she was putting out trash and the next thing she saw, she was down in the basket that she was putting her trash in. So she couldn't holler at her to tell her to come. The daughter was mowing the lawn and she couldn't make the daughter hear, so she quick ran to her. Well, the woman fell backwards in the basket and then rolled over and she couldn't get up. So the lady went and got her daughter and she said that when she wasn't hurt, they laughed. She said they still laugh about it.
NP: But not before.
BP: I have a garden, too. The lady was [unclear].
"Yes, but I have a can. I have a broom stick that I
use because the cane is not as long as the broom stick." That's why I use the broomstick.
NP: You plant your garden very carefully according to the almanac.
BP: Yes.
NP: Does that really work?
BP: Yes. One year I don't know what it was we planted, didn't do any good. Ed says, "Well, we didn't plant it right." I said, "No, we didn't."
NP: When did you first hear about these signs? EP: Well, my father always did it. I don't know. NP: Did all the farmers do it?
EP: I guess they did.
PYLE 30
NP: How do you do it?
BP: Well, you go by the moon and the sun. It's in the
almanac. Now, if you plant when the moon is [unclear], your things will grow deep in the ground; if you plant when the moon's on the other side, they'll grow on top of the ground. I don't think I can [unclear], do you.
NP: So you have to be careful what way the moon is.
That means if it's a full moon.
BP: Yes. Well, don't matter whether it's full or what,
just so the sign is right.
NP: Do you really think that works?
BP: Now, there's the head, and the neck, and the arms
and parts of the body. [a lot unclear]
NP: When do the signs [unclear].
BP: Oh, no, they generally stay in the same sign about
two days.
NP: What if it rains during the two days?
BP: Well, then you don't get it done.
NP: Does it turn out bad?
BP: You just have to wait until [unclear]. They won't
grow without rain and they won't grow with too much
rain.
NP: You followed the signs with everything you plant.
BP: Yeah, I do.
NB: And not only that but [unclear].
NP: Everything had to be done by the signs then.
PYLE 31
BP: Yes.
NP: Who told you about these signs?
BP: It's always handed down from generation to
generation far as I know.
NP: So your father always picked a certain time to plan.
BP: Yes, and the moon was on the [unclear].
NP: Why?
BP: Well, [unclear].
NP: Did you have experience that showed you that
different times --
BP: Yes.
NP: What was that?
NB: [unclear]. [tape turned off]
HP: In addition to the signs, the weather must have been
awfully important there.
NB: In the wintertime when we went to school, we had
snow then and I mean a lot of snow. The roads would drift and we would walk to school over snow drifts for a quarter of a mile until the spring thaw came then the man would close his field off and then the men would get busy and open the roads. Why, the snow drifts would be fifteen foot high, I reckon.
NP: Is that right? We don't have those anymore.
MB: No, we don't have those, but we did. The kids would play. You'd go next door and sled till midnight. NP: When the moon was up.
MB: Oh, we took lanterns and set lanterns at the foot of
PYLE 32
the hill and sled.
BP: It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves.
MB: One year I remember we went off from school, went up
to Tucker's and sledded at lunch hour. We came back after 1:00, long, and the teacher would say nothing because she was a sporting. She didn't care whether class was through or not.
NP: She was sporting, what's the mean?
MB: She had a boyfriend.
MP: Oh, so she was distracted. Did she get married
then?
MB: No, never did get married. You weren't allowed to
get married and still teach in school.
NP: You weren't allowed to get married?
BP: Oh, yes, they were allowed to get married, but they
wasn't the marrying type.
HP: You could be married and still be a school teacher
then?
BP: There wasn't very many that were, though. I never
went to a married teacher, no.
HP: Who were your school friends?
EP: The neighbors. The [unclear] were the closest ones.
NP: [unclear]
BP: Of the same connection, but the Graftons lived there
[unclear] next to the bank.
NP: They still live there.
BP: She is still there.
PYLE 33
NP: Did you go visiting and play dolls together and
things like that?
EP: Now, that's a [unclear]. I think it is, and then
the farm house there. This is Edith. She taught
school, but she died.
NP: That's Edith Grafton.
BP: Yes.
NP: You went to school with that--who was that who used
to preach at Hickory?
BP: Arthur Slate.
NP: He was in your class, too.
BP: He wasn't in my class.
NP: Oh, he was younger. -
BP: But you didn't know it till he died. I got a card
from the church and he was born the same day I was,
23rd of January. I didn't know it.
NP: did he always live around here? He came back?
BP: They lived up there on Johnsons Mill Road.
[unclear[
NP: The Forwoods had the canning factory.
BP: Yeah, they were the ones that canned.
NP: Did they sell what they canned?
BP: Yeah.
NP: You know to can, too, don't you?
BP: Yes. You can't get many of your cans that size.
People don't want to buy that size anymore.
NP: What did you do with your friends? Did your brother
PYLE 34
have friends, too, in those days?
EP: Oh, yes. After he got through with [unclear] he went to high school and [unclear] and when he graduated from high school he went to work for [unclear] for seven dollars a week.
NP: He went to Bel Air High School?
BP: Yeah, and he walked.
NP: Not very many people went to high school.
BP: Not a lot, no.
NP: Did the girls go?
BP: Yeah, girls went. The Hodges girls went to high school. [unclear]
MB: Helen and Adell were teachers.
NP: That's what mostly the women did would be teachers or get married.
BP: Because you went to Eel Air High School and you didn't have took an examination. You didn't have [unclear]. Those days you could go into teaching right out after. And they were good teachers. They turned out some very good teachers.
NP: So that's what mostly the girls did when they grew up.
BP: Yeah. If they didn't get married, they taught school.
ME: Mrs. Pyle, you mentioned earlier that your brother Tom was born in 1897 and that he was one of twins. What happened to the twin?
PYLE 35
BP: Well, he had [unclear].
NB: He was just weak, I suppose. Now, he was the oldest
twin. I just remember --
NP: You were only six years old. That was at home that
your mother had the twins.
MB: Oh, yes. You never heard of anybody going to the
hospital back in those days.
MP: What did you do when [unclear]? Did they make you
go outside?
BP: I guess I did. I was at my grandfather's. I
remember my father coming over and saying, "We've
got twins." Mame, do you remember that?
MB: No.
MP: did the doctor come or did somebody come and help
her?
BP: Oh, yes. We had a doctor and had a woman to care of
her.
ME': And what did the other little boy die of?
BP: [unclear].
NP: There was another name you were saying.
MB: [unclear]. The thing as deterioration, I suppose.
I don't know. You don't hear of it anymore.
NP: Mrs. Pyle and Name, too, what was it like when you
got electricity? Did everybody rush to get
electricity when it came through?
BP: No.
NP: Did you have to pay?
PYLE 36
NB: Oh, yes, you had to pay. Of course, I don't very
much recall when they put it in. We was a long back
off the road. But I think they put in all the poles
to a hundred feet, didn't they?
NP: Then you got electric lights?
NB: We got lights. That's when it come along and we
could afford it.
NP: Could everybody afford it?
MB: No. [unclear] lived a good long while. Uncle Jim
got sick and --
HP: What was the first thing you got for the electric?
The first appliance?
BP: I guess the washing machine was the first thing.
NP: Before that you had to wash on the wash board.
BP: Yeah, the washboard.
NP: People came to sell these appliances?
EP: Yeah, [unclear]'s father was the one that come
around selling washing machines. [unclear]
NB: [unclear]
HP: That was a ringer kind of washing machine?
BP: No, it was a spinner.
MB: Just like the one I have now. Well, I have a
spinner now. So after they got a new one and I got
the old one. Then I used it here till it wore out
and then I bought a used one.
NP: But it wasn't the kind of the ringer.
NB: Oh, no.
PYLE 37
NP: What was it like?
NB: It was the cone in it and you put the clothes in
it. Then the lever you pushed and it spins it
around and spins the water back into the tub.
NP: That was a big improvement then, wasn't it?
NB: Oh, yes.
NP: They last a long time.
BP: Yeah, something happened to mine.
NP: Did you get lots of appliances then? Did people
start buying them?
BP: Well, we were the first ones, I guess. I don't
remember who got electric before we did.
NP: You were married then.
BP: Yes.
NB: [unclear]
NP: Was he afraid of fire?
BP: He would imagine things, you know. My brother, when
they got electric he didn't very much approve of it,
did he?
ME': You never did get electricity in your church.
BP: No.
NB: And we're not going to have it.
NP: Do you ever see people that you used to know? What
happened to Judge Watters and all those people?
BP: Oh, he's been dead years.
NP: Do you ever see any of his children or did you know
them?
PYLE 38
BP: He had a grandson that used to come once in awhile, but he hasn't been down there for a good while. Now, he lived up north. Somebody a year ago wanted to know--we always send him a card and one time we were down there, it was when we were [unclear], and he came in and I said to him--his mother's name was Maine, and I said--he said, "You don't know me," and I said --
End of Interview
MB = Miss Mary Barrow (Maine), Mrs. Pyle's sister. [this tape is very difficult to understand]

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Transcript

Interview with Blanche Barrow Pyle for the Harford County Oral History Project, by Mary Louise Pr-ice, March 14,
1974. fei5
fi is
PRICE: This is Mary Louise k-fee speaking. It's March 14, 1974, a chilly, windy March day. I'm sitting with Blanche Pyle in her dining room window looking out over the garden at her private home in Bel Air. This afternoon we would like to talk about some of Mrs. Pyle's reminiscences and her knowledge about what happened in Harford County many years agp. Mrs. Pyle, you lived first near Thomas Run?
PYLE: Thomas Run. Then we moved to the Hickory.
NP: You lived at Thomas Run until you were about six years old?
BP: Yeah. -
NP: Thomas Run, what was it like then?
BP: Just about like it is now. Well, now, Cool Spring is over from Thomas Run. Right where Thomas Run is, where the farm, the farm that I was born on, it's just about the same.
NP: You were born on what farm?
BP: The Judge Waters farm.
NP: What did your father do there?
BP: He oversaw the fan. He was overseer for Judge
Waters. Judge Waters was judge of Harford County. NP: What kind of farming was it at that time? You had animals?
BP: Yes. They didn't have dairy cows.
PYLE 2
NP: So they didn't have dairy cows. What did they raise?
BP: They raised hogs and had cows for their own use and they raised corn and wheat. There wasn't any [unclear] raised those days. Of course, they raised their food, their garden.
NP: And did you grew your own wheat? Did you have to give some of that to Judge Waters? Did you split it?
EP: Oh, yes. He got paid for his work.
NP: Your father did.
BP: Yes.
NP: Plus he got his own stock to raise his own garden. BP: Oh, yes, and he had his own meat.
NP: He didn't have to give any of his things to Judge Waters.
BP: Oh, no.
NP: I see. But he did take care of the farm for him. You said you grew more wheat in those days.
BP: Than they do today. See, not everybody raises wheat
today. There was a lot of people raised wheat in those days. As I say, they raised wheat and always had to try to be done harvesting by the 4th of July and then after the wheat got good and dry they had the thrasher to come in and thrash.
NP: What was the thrasher like?
BP: It was like an engine. You've seen an engine like
PYLE 3
cars have, railroads.
MP: Oh, a big railroad engine.
BP: Right. Not as big, but that's what it was similar to. It burned coal and if they got down thrashing one day, they'd move up the next day ready to set up, ready to start early morning because it generally took the morning.
MP: And you paid that man to bring his thrasher around. BP: Oh, yes, you paid. I don't have any idea how much. MP: And he brought his men with him?
BP: No, you got your neighbors. The neighbors helped
and then when they had theirs to do, they exchanged help. That's the way it was harvested those days. They didn't pay people. They didn't have the
money. There wasn't that much money in farming.
NP: I see. Now, these thrashers, they didn't take those around to the fields.
BP: Oh, no, they set it up at the barn.
MP: Near the barn.
BP: They set it on what they called the bridgeway, like a driveway and then they set it up and thrashed. As I say, it would take them--it really depended on the crop they had. If you had a big acreage it would take longer and, of course, you fed the thrashers. They were neighbors, you fed them.
NP: You had a big dinner at noon.
BP: Yes.
PYLE 4
NP: And then what happened to the wheat then? You had the wheat and the straw.
BP: It was put in a bin in the barn and you kept it stirred so it wouldn't heat and the straw was put in a mound.
NP: You didn't bale the straw.
BP: No, there was no such thing as a baler those days. NP: Your father used all that equipment that used horses.
BP: Yes, horses and mules.
NP: Did you have riding horses?
EP: Oh, no. You rode your farm horses if you were
riding. -
NP: Then when you wanted to go some place --
BP: You had a horse and buggy. You hooked the horse up to the buggy. Or a mule. Yes, my daddy had mules, Old Jack and Jill, I called them.
NB: And I had to ride the mule to work in the garden. NP: I see. The church was there then. You lived near the church at Thomas Run.
BP: Yes, the church was there.
NP: Were there a lot of people that went to the church at Thomas Run? There are not too many people around Thomas Run now.
BP: No, that is what the church was sold. The farms were sold and all the people moved were Catholics and of course, the would attend the Methodist
PYLE 5
Church. They drove from Thomas Run to Hickory to church. Where the Lockerys live and we would be going to Thomas Run, we'd meet the Lockereys going to St. Ignatius at the Hickory, and I remember hearing grandfather saying why couldn't we just go there and they go down here. But that wasn't the thing.
NP: That was after you'd moved to Hickory.
BP: Yes.
NP: Who serviced the church then? It was on the Methodist circuit?
BP: Well, we had the Baltimore Conference sent a minister there and they generally stayed four years. NP: Where did they live?
BP: In Darlington. The parsonage was in Darlington and he served Thomas Run, Rock Run and Darlington. NP: You had services every Sunday?
EP: Yes, had church every Sunday. He'd come to Thomas Run in the morning and the afternoon Rock Run and I guess at night in Darlington.
NP: What was the service like then? You had Sunday School, did you?
BP: Had Sunday School before the service, and the preacher preached a sermon just like today, and then in June when school was closed, we all had a little entertainment and had Children's Day.
NP: Oh, that sounds good. What was that?
PYLE 6
BP: Well, the children would recite suer pieces and they'd have songs and then generally in the latter part of July when the harvesting was over, we'd have a strawberry and ice cream festival.
NP: Oh, yummy. How did you do that? Did you all have your own strawberries?
BP: Well, some people had their own strawberries. We bought the ice cream.
NP: You didn't make it?
BP: No. Well, there might have been somebody. Set the tables out and everybody made cake and homemade candy and cake and sodas. And we hung Japanese lanterns all up along for lights. Had no electric. There was no electric there as yet.
NP: Is that right?
BP: Oh, yes, and then just before school would start, we'd have our Sunday School picnic. One year I remember very well our Sunday School teacher was having the Sunday School picnic.
NP: Who was that?
EP: Who was she? She was Mrs. Florence Nagle, N-A-G-L-E. she had it at her house and her oldest son was Steuart. Of course, he was in our class, too. They decided to make homemade ice cream, the students and had peaches. He had just started to take music lessons and all he would do is sit and play "Work for the Night is Coming," and they
PYLE 7
churned ice cream all day and it didn't get hard
yet. But everybody had a good time.
NP: Oh, I'm sure you did. So you had three or four
socials during the year.
BP: Yes.
NP: Did you have dances or anything?
BP: No. No, no, that was very much against the
religion.
NP: You didn't have that.
MB: Christmas entertainment.
ME: Oh, you had Christmas entertainment. Well, that
sounds very much like what goes on at Thomas Run now
because--when do you have services there? -
BP: May and September.
NP: This church was built when?
BP: This one is 1782.
NP: And there was one there before that.
BP: Yes, 1770. It was logged down. There's mounds of
logs up the woods. I'll tell you right exactly
where [unclear] is. I have a copy of it, but I'm
not able to read it. [unclear]
ME': You have always been interested in the church
because you've always gone to that church.
BP: Yeah, sure.
NP: A few years ago, though, the Thomas Run Foundation
was started. Now, what is that?
BP: Ten years ago. Lester and I bought the church
PYLE 8
because the conference wanted no longer to have the expense of it. Now, I don't know what the expense would be, but they wouldn't supply a minister to it.
NP: There weren't enough people, either.
BP: No, it was only two people to go and they couldn't afford to pay a minister. After we bought it, John Parks was concerned. He said, "Well, the thing for you to do is to form a foundation so you won't have taxes." That's what we did. It's all written up. It's all in black and white.
NP: So that when you have your services in the last Sunday in May and the last Sunday in September, you
have a little celebration and people come back.
BP: Yes, there's different people. Every service you meet somebody that never has been before, and all that collection money goes into the foundation. In the meantime, there's donations sent in.
NIP: You still have sometimes burials there. There's a cemetery.
BP: Yes, we've had three since last July.
NP: Is the church changed on the inside?
BP: No.
NP: Same everything?
BP: It's just the same, except the stoves. Now, the
first stoves were potbelly coal stoves. Of course, they wore out and now we have the regular sheet iron stoves.
PYLE 9
NP: I'll always remember that gallery upstairs there.
They called it the slave gallery. Was it really
that?
BP: Yes, yes.
NP: What's that are in the front of it you were telling
me about?
BP: Where the organ is is the choir.
NP: Oh, that was the choir corner.
BP: Yes, on the right where the organ is.
NP: And what was the left hand for?
BP: That was where the dignitaries of the church, the
superintendent of Sunday School and trustees of the
church. You know, there had to be trustees. -
NP: And they sat up there. What was this amen thing?
BP: It's just where they had these three seats. That's
where they sat, to be up front to answer any
questions that they asked them.
NP: And they were then allowed to.
BP: Oh, yes. They could speak their piece.
NP: I see. The Sunday School was taught in the church?
BP: Oh, yes.
NP: And who taught it?
BP: Some of the mothers of the children that were there
in the class.
NP: You went to Sunday School at 9:30.
BP: Yes, that's when we went. Church started at 10:00.
Then we got out 12:00, then we went home and had
PYLE 10
lunch. My grandmother was very religious. She didn't cook a meal on Sunday. The Sunday meal was cooked on Saturday. On Sunday we had cold dinner. You probably could get a cup of coffee, if you drank it.
NP: You lived in Thomas Run until you were six and after that your father, you and your sister Mame--your father's name is Cornelius Barrow--and you all moved to Hickory.
BP: Yes.
NP: What was moving like? You don't remember?
BP: In a horse and a wagon. Had a horse and wagon and moved the furniture in that. There was no such thing as a moving van or anything you could find. Of course, the neighbors come to help you move.
MB: We moved the black cat, I recall.
BP: I remember very well we had a black cat and he was black as tar and we called him "Coon." I think he lived to be about 17 years.
NP: You had to move him on moving day. That would be
very important to a six year old. Your father bought this farm in Hickory, though.
BP: We grandfather bought it. He gave it to my father.
MI': And why did he buy it, your grandfather?
BP: Well, he bought it because it was being sold.
MI': Why was it being sold?
BP: Because the people couldn't keep the taxes up, I
PYLE 11
suppose.
NP: Why, were they hard times then?
BP: Oh, yes. Years ago a lot of places were sold for taxes.
NP: What year was this when he bought that farm? Was it about 1900's era?
BP: Tom was born in 1897. About 1896 is when we moved there. Now, the barn that's on the place was built in 1892.
NP: You know that then. That house is older than that? BP: Oh, yes, it's old, but it's been remodeled. In 1929 Tom remodeled it.
NP; torn was your brother? -
BP: Yes, closed the back porch in.
NP: What was the original house then?
BP: It's the same. [unclear] or the front porch.
NP: When you were six years old did you go to school?
Now you lived in Hickory.
BP: Yes, I went to school to the Hickory. You walked a
mile and it was a dirt road. You carried your
lunch.
NP: Who was the teacher?
BP: Ida Curtis was my first grade teacher and she was a
Quaker.
NP: What did you study?
BP: Stuff they study today. ABC's.
NP: You studied the ABC's.
PYLE 12
BP: Sure, and your letters, how to spell. We had a big iron potbellied stove in the center of the room and you had two boys that carried the coal in and there was was two assigned to carry the water. The water was carried a quarter of a mile, I would say, to the school and set in the vestibule on a bench. There was a basin there with a bar of soap you could wash your hands in. Everybody drank out of the same dipper, nobody died. Then when school started, I would say there was attendance of about 40. Then after canning was over --
MP: After canning was over.
BP: Yes. There was one family that had a cannery, canned tomatoes.
HP: Who was that?
EP: Silver over on Johnsons Mill Road. The chlidren worked in the canning house. Some of themselves. They didn't have much outside help. Then they would start into school after the attendance got up to 70 they'd get an assistant to teach. She would sit in the back of the room and the principal was up
front. We had black boards and chalk to write with and when school took in at 9:00, they had an organ and somebody played a march. The children marched around the school house and took their seats, and when they took their seats they had the Lord's prayer and then they had exercises and had a song,
PYLE 13
always sang a sang. Of course, Thanksgiving we had holidays. Christmas time you had a Christmas entertainment before school closed for the Christmas holidays. The school had a library.
NP: Where was the library, on one of the walls?
BP: Had a bookcase. There was one in each corner. One was the library and the other was for the school books. The teacher had the desk in the center of the room and she would write on the board what your studies would be, and on Friday was mental arithmetic and penmanship. You had copy books and you could hear a pin fall. You had to write lines
that were in the copy books. -
NP: You'd use pen and ink.
BP: Yes, you had pen and ink. The desks were double and had an ink well in the center and you had to keep watching the ink because it dried. You had to keep dipping it in all the time. Then one big event was Arbor Day and that was always the first Friday in April and we always planted a tree and named it for somebody.
NP: An important person?
BP: Yes.
NP: Are those trees still there?
BP: I don't think so. I know that the place has been
sold. That's where Phillip's TV is. No, there's none of those trees there. When we went to school
PYLE 14
there was a big cherry tree. It was there as long
as I can remember. Used to have cherries on it. NP: It was planted by the children?
BP: I don't know when it was planted. Then by the coal house--we had to have a coal house to keep the coal in--one end of it was the boy's room and the girls had a little outhouse up on the other side. By the coal house was an apple tree. It had [unclear] apples on it. They were the best apples.
NP: I took a few, I can tell. They were for everybody to eat?
BP: Yes, everybody had them.
HP: Who paid the teacher? -
BP: The county, same as they do now.
NP: It was a county school?
BP: But they didn't get paid like they do now. They got
paid every three months.
NP: You don't know how much they got paid, do you? BP: They didn't get very much.
HP: And they were always women.
BP: Yes, we never had a man teacher. Mr. Charles
Wright--now that would be Ben Gross's wife's father--was school superintendent and once a year, maybe twice, he would come around to see how they were behaving and the school needed, and you were scared to death when he walked in the door. But he never bothered you. He would make some comment and
PYLE 15
tell some things he thought. Then after he died, or after he resigned, I guess, it was Mr. Milton Wright and Mr. Milton Wright's still living.
NP: That's right. Did you have recess? What did you play?
BP: Oh, drop the handkerchief, and crack the whip, and hide and seek. That was about all because we only had fifteen minutes.
NP: For recess.
BP: Yeah, and at dinner time you ate your dinner and then you had a little time to play then.
NP: What time did school let out then?
BP: 4:00. You took in at 9:00 and you got out at 10:30 for recess; you got out at 12:00 for lunch hour; took in at 1:00 and at 2:30 the first three grades went home. At 4:00 the other grades went home, and I mean you went home. You walked. In bad weather my daddy took us and sometimes the neighbors would take us, and take the other children.
NP: And did he take you in that buggy?
BP: Yes.
NP: That buggy you called a what?
BP: A Dayton.
NP: A Dayton. What kind of a buggy is that?
BP: Well, it was a two-seated affair. Like a buggy only
it had two seats. You'd have to ride in one to see what a buggy looked like.
PYLE 16
NP: Alright. But it has fringe you told me.
BP: It did. Well, several years go when--I don't know whether you got rid of the buggy or what, but I said I wanted the wheel, and I had it out here in the yard. It was painted and took care of it, but it finally fell to pieces. Margie Lee wanted one to show Wilbur because she would never know what it was, but I think Wilbur has seen enough to know what the wheels on a buggy was like or a wagon.
NP: Your mother then took care of the house and there
were three children. What were her duties like? Did you have to help her?
BP: Oh, yes. We had our turns. When we went home from school we helped with the dishes and carried in the wood, feed the chickens. You burned wood, you didn't have electric. In the suer time you had an oil stove. Then they built the Conawingo Road, the road to the pike now, why we took boarders.
NP: You did?
BP: Grown men, yes. Got three dollars a week.
NP: For board.
BP: Yes.
NP: You had to feed them, too.
BP: Sure, that's what we had to do. That was thirty
yeas ago, I reckon, Mane.
MB: No, it's not that long.
NP: Sc, they stayed there with you.
PYLE 17
BP: Yeah, while they worked on the road.
NP: And your father did the farming. What kind of farm did he have, same kind?
BP: Yeah, he raised corn. We did use use to raise wheat and oats and hogs and had cows for our own use. NP: Did your mother have to go shopping very often? EP: We had chickens.
MB: You went to the country store. You went to the country and you took your basket of eggs. You would trade them off for what they had at the store. Now, you didn't get these things in the store like they do now. In the fall you buried your cabbage and your turnips and you had your potatoes and you canned your tomatoes and that's what you lived on through the winter. You didn't have--you would get bananas and oranges at Christmas time but that other would be a luxury.
NP: You had a root cellar then,is that what you're saying?
BP: Yes, some people had root cellars.
NP: And where else could you bury them?
BP: Just bury it in the ground somewhere. Dig a hole, cover it over with dirt, lay boards around over or sod or something to keep it warn. I remember very well Burt and Aunt El--that was my father's sister--and my mother had saved a big basket of eggs and went down to county to the store. That was a
PYLE 18
big store where they had dried goods and a little more than the store at the Hickory, and they got nine cents a dozen for them. I think there was about 14 dozen. Now, that was a big price for eggs.
NP: And what could she trade for that?
BP: Well, sugar and spices, see. Of course, she had her own butter.
NP: And what about cloths?
BP: You made your cloths.
NP: You had to buy your fabric.
BP: You had to buy the material to make them out of, but
you never had any ready made cloths.
MB: My mother was a dress maker.
BP: Yeah, my mother was a dress maker. Now, do you know where that Beshore's place of business is now? NP: lJh-huh.
BP: Well, there was a house there and that was where Miss Peggy Bond lived and she taught my mother dress making.
NP: Oh, I see, and your mother made cloths for people.
BP: She was a dress maker. She didn't after she was married, only our own. But when you live on a farm and have work to do, you didn't have time to sew for other people. Now, then, at the Hickory where the garage now is was a long store. Now, they kept tobacco and, of course, all the men chewed tobacco those days, smoked. Then one end of the store was
PYLE 19
the post office. Now, there was no mail delivery and we would get the mail when we'd go home from school. Then next to the store was a man was a shoe maker. Then down the hill from the store there was a blacksmith shop.
NP: You had everything you needed.
BP: Yes.
NP: Shoes for you and shoes for the horses. Is that where you went to have your shoes made?
BP: No, I didn't ever have to wear homemade shoes. We could go to Eel Air to get some bought shoes. There was a shoe store those days.
NP: I see. You didn't have to buy very much then. You pretty well had what you needed at home and your mother sounds very self-sufficient.
BP: Well, we canned stuff. Of course, we had fruit
trees on the place, had plum trees and peaches, apples.
NP: I know something else your mother did, and that was quilt because she taught you to do that and you've taught me to do that.
EP: No, she didn't do much cooking. I learned to make a quilt square. She showed me how to do that, but I never remember her --
NP: Well, who taught you to quilt, then?
BP: There was a lady, an old maid that went around that had a hard time and she went around and quilted and
PYLE 20
showed people how to quilt.
NP: You know how to quilt because your mother had a
quilting frame, or did you grandfather make that one
for you?
BP: That was my grandfather on my father's side that
made that quilting frame.
NP: Was he the carpenter?
BP: Yes.
NP: And where did he live?
BP: He lived on Eighty Road.
NP: What was his name?
BP: James.
NP: James Barrow. -
BP: Yes.
NP: Did your sister and everybody help make a quilt, or
was it just you?
BP: No, I just pieced it myself.
[end of side 11
NP: I'm continuing to talk to Mrs. Pyle this afternoon
about her remembrances of her early years. We were
talking about quilting and she remembers a quilt
that--who was that you made that with?
BP: Lizzie Watters. I suppose she made it and gave it
to my mother because she had twins and it was for the crib. Then later years after I was married and had Elizabeth, she gave it to me. It was red and white, the man part was red and white squares with
PYLE 21
white muslin and the other you could tell pieces that was left from scraps of sewing. We didn't buy it. It seems to me the under piece, like you have for the muslin, was added, which you could buy those days.
NP: What was that called?
BP: Outem.
NP: Outem, and what was the quilt stuffed with?
BP: Cotton.
NP: Cotton batting, same as you have now. Where did you
work on quilts in those days? Did you have a special room or in a big main room?
BP: Whereever they had room. I think when Allie Tredway did it, she did it upstairs, didn't she Mame, or just in the dining room? She tied them. She used to do a lot.
NP: Most people just made their own quilts for themselves. They wouldn't do it for anybody else. BP: Oh, yes.
NP: Other things had to be done around the house, though. You were saying that your father used to butcher hogs in the fall.
BP: Yes, always butchered around November, as soon as the weather got cold enough.
NP: Why did it have to be cold?
BP: Well, you didn't have an ice house or any place cold to put them. You had to have it cold for the meat
PYLE 22
to be solid so you could cut it, else it would be soft and flabby and hard to work with.
NP: So you left it outside because you didn't have any refrigeration inside.
BP: No. We made the lard, had a lard press and you had a sausage stuffer. We used to clean the entrails of the hog and then soak them, and then stuff the sausage in that. Then you got [unclear] where it would be cold and freezing,
NP: Did he butcher by himself?
BP: Some of the neighbors helped. "I'm going to butcher tomorrow," and they'd come. Lots of time they liked to do it on Saturday. Then it would hang over until Monday and then they'd cut it up. Then the buys would have the meat to get the butchering out of the way because when butchering was on, you didn't want to have to stop and do other things.
NP: What exactly happened when they butchered?
BP: You kill the hogs and scald and [unclear]. And build a fire and boil the water.
NP: Did you have a big kettle?
BP: Had a big kettle or a tub and used to have stones, put stone in the middle to keep it hot and that would scald it and scrape the hair off of them. Then cut them open, take the insides out.
NP: Then did you have to season it or just cut it up? BP: Oh, yes, when you got it all cut up ready to make
PYLE 23
your sausage you weighed it. You added so much salt and so much pepper per pound and seasoned it.
NP: And then what did you do with it? You hung it? You made scrapple, too.
BP: We used the liver and scraps which wouldn't grind through for sausage. You would kick it.
NP: Is that why it was called scrapple because you used the scraps?
BP: Yes.
NP: I never knew that. Did they hang it up in a smoke
house or something? Did everybody have a smoke house?
BP: Most people had a place to hang it.
ME': Did you do beef, too?
BP: Once in a great while we got a half of a beef and the weather was cold enough then that you could hang it up outside. I remember very well having a half a beef hung up over the dairy where it was cold and the weather was right. Mother would go out with her butcher knife and cut off a slab and round a steak and it would have ice on it. It was good. It was fit to eat, but you don't get that now, I'll tell you.
ME': Not the same taste.
BP: No. But that was a luxury. Not everybody did it. ME': So most people ate [unclear].
Yes, and you ate your own chickens.
PYLE 24
NP: They had things like poultry. Did you have
[unclear]. Mostly you had your own fruits and vegetables canned in the summer.
BP: Yes. You'd eat it all summer and then you'd eat it
all winter. You'd get beef once in awhile if you'd come to buy it at the butcher shop. Then a few years after that there used to be a man running around, and you would hear him coming ringing his bell. You had to go up to the road if you wanted a piece of beef. You'd buy it off the wagon.
NP: I wonder how much it cost then.
BP: It wasn't very high then. Fifteen or twenty cents, maybe.
MP: For a pound. But hogs were the major kind of meat.
In the smoke houses, would you build a fire in there?
BP: You had it built so that it wouldn't blaze. It just smothered.
MP: Was there a hole in the floor?
BP: It was a dirt floor. You kept it smothered. You
know, if you burn trash outside sometimes how your fire won't blaze? Well, that's the way you lite it. You ought to use hickory wood because it made the best smoke, and sawdust.
NP: How long did you have to let it smoke? Did you keep the fire going for days or weeks?
BP: It depended on how much you wanted it smoked, how
PYLE 25
much you wanted to taste of the smoke. Mother didn't care for heavily smoked meat. Of course, now you can buy hickory smoked.
NP: How times have changed
BP: And the people, too.
NP: Do you really think they have?
BP: Yeah,
NP: Were they more friendly then?
BP: Well, yes and no. Now, when my grandparents lived on my mother's side, she always had one day a week you hooked up to the buggy and go with her mother Sunday afternoon. Grandfather would shoe the horse if it was necessary to be shod.
NP: One afternoon a week. Did you get to go, too?
BP: Oh, yes, if it was summertime, but not in the school days. I didn't get to stay home from school because we went to school. We did everything on Saturday after we got our pants washed and our dusting done and the chores that we had to do.
NP: What kind of furniture did you have?
BP: We had furniture good enough to sit down on.
NP: I mean, did you have wood furniture, upholstery furniture? Did your grandfather who was a carpenter make it? He wasn't a cabinet maker.
BP: Oh, no. The furniture up home [unclear], some of them and they bought them.
NP: Or their parents gave it to them. How did you buy
PYLE 26
furniture then? Were there stores? When your mother bought it.
BP: Well, people would have a fair and you'd go to the fair and [unclear]
NY: You had coal oil lamps and it was your job to wash it. Was that a big job?
EP: It was a good job. The lamps if you'd turn them up
a little bit they'd smoke and you'd have to put them in water and wash them all out. You put the coal oil in because there was more than one. We had them in the dining room. We didn't sit in the living room then. It got cold. You didn't sit in that room. We had a coal stove and the kitchen stove.
NP: Is that what you called the family room?
BP: Yes.
NP: Did you call it the family room?
BP: No, we called it the dining room.
NP: And that was where you sat most of the time.
BP: Yes.
NP: Was the kitchen big?
BP: Yes, the kitchen was a fair size. We always ate in
the kitchen; we never ate in the dining room. That
was just for company.
NP: Did you have company often?
BP: No, only once in awhile.
NP: The preacher came once in awhile, but you had to be
good then.
PYLE 27
BP: He'd come and he'd bring his horse and we'd have to feed it, feed him and then if you had anything left he'd want some to take home with him.
NP: Oh, really. Good cooking, I bet.
BP: But that wasn't our preacher too much. That was the preacher from [unclear].
NP: Did your mother teach you to cook and can?
BP: Oh, I learned most of it. I never picked up much cooking till after I got married.
NP: You weren't home then when they got telephone and electricity and all that?
BP: No.
NP: What about cars, automobiles? -
BP: Tom had a car.
NP: Your brother.
BP: Yes, he bought a car and then we got a car.
NP: Was that fun?
BP: Oh, yes.
NP: Do you remember when you were a little girl seeing
them?
BP: A Model-T and you had to crank it many a time. I
started to drive when I was 28 and I never had an accident, but I was stopped along the road one time to get flowers and a car come off the highway and come over and hit my car, but nobody was hurt. But we never got a darn thing out of that. It was a stolen car and they stopped in John Billaday's
Garage down Bel Air Route and [unclear].
NP: Oh, that's too bad. When you lived at home your mother had a garden evidently.
BP: Oh, yes. We had strawberries.
NP: You had strawberries, too. Did you donate them for the strawberry ice cream social?
BP: No, because the strawberries would be gone. They were in May and we didn't have the strawberry festival till late July, first of August when the harvesting would be over. That would be when you'd have it. I remember very well one time there was one lady brought a bunch of flowers and they sold everything that was left there on the table, and I remember I thought they were the prettiest flowers I ever saw and I wanted that bunch of flowers so bad and she got them for fifteen cents. I'll tell you what they was, they was Abgeranium Pansies.
NP: Did your mother grow flowers, too?
BP: Oh, yes, she always grew flowers. Used to be a great thing with dahlias.
NP: So that's how you learned to garden. You still have a beautiful garden every year.
BP: Thank you.
MP: You still have a pretty garden every year and you still do your own canning.
BP: Well, I heard one yesterday. There was a lady, an older lady than I that has a garden and the lady was
PYLE 29
looking out and she she saw her in the garden. She knew she was putting out trash and the next thing she saw, she was down in the basket that she was putting her trash in. So she couldn't holler at her to tell her to come. The daughter was mowing the lawn and she couldn't make the daughter hear, so she quick ran to her. Well, the woman fell backwards in the basket and then rolled over and she couldn't get up. So the lady went and got her daughter and she said that when she wasn't hurt, they laughed. She said they still laugh about it.
NP: But not before.
BP: I have a garden, too. The lady was [unclear].
"Yes, but I have a can. I have a broom stick that I
use because the cane is not as long as the broom stick." That's why I use the broomstick.
NP: You plant your garden very carefully according to the almanac.
BP: Yes.
NP: Does that really work?
BP: Yes. One year I don't know what it was we planted, didn't do any good. Ed says, "Well, we didn't plant it right." I said, "No, we didn't."
NP: When did you first hear about these signs? EP: Well, my father always did it. I don't know. NP: Did all the farmers do it?
EP: I guess they did.
PYLE 30
NP: How do you do it?
BP: Well, you go by the moon and the sun. It's in the
almanac. Now, if you plant when the moon is [unclear], your things will grow deep in the ground; if you plant when the moon's on the other side, they'll grow on top of the ground. I don't think I can [unclear], do you.
NP: So you have to be careful what way the moon is.
That means if it's a full moon.
BP: Yes. Well, don't matter whether it's full or what,
just so the sign is right.
NP: Do you really think that works?
BP: Now, there's the head, and the neck, and the arms
and parts of the body. [a lot unclear]
NP: When do the signs [unclear].
BP: Oh, no, they generally stay in the same sign about
two days.
NP: What if it rains during the two days?
BP: Well, then you don't get it done.
NP: Does it turn out bad?
BP: You just have to wait until [unclear]. They won't
grow without rain and they won't grow with too much
rain.
NP: You followed the signs with everything you plant.
BP: Yeah, I do.
NB: And not only that but [unclear].
NP: Everything had to be done by the signs then.
PYLE 31
BP: Yes.
NP: Who told you about these signs?
BP: It's always handed down from generation to
generation far as I know.
NP: So your father always picked a certain time to plan.
BP: Yes, and the moon was on the [unclear].
NP: Why?
BP: Well, [unclear].
NP: Did you have experience that showed you that
different times --
BP: Yes.
NP: What was that?
NB: [unclear]. [tape turned off]
HP: In addition to the signs, the weather must have been
awfully important there.
NB: In the wintertime when we went to school, we had
snow then and I mean a lot of snow. The roads would drift and we would walk to school over snow drifts for a quarter of a mile until the spring thaw came then the man would close his field off and then the men would get busy and open the roads. Why, the snow drifts would be fifteen foot high, I reckon.
NP: Is that right? We don't have those anymore.
MB: No, we don't have those, but we did. The kids would play. You'd go next door and sled till midnight. NP: When the moon was up.
MB: Oh, we took lanterns and set lanterns at the foot of
PYLE 32
the hill and sled.
BP: It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves.
MB: One year I remember we went off from school, went up
to Tucker's and sledded at lunch hour. We came back after 1:00, long, and the teacher would say nothing because she was a sporting. She didn't care whether class was through or not.
NP: She was sporting, what's the mean?
MB: She had a boyfriend.
MP: Oh, so she was distracted. Did she get married
then?
MB: No, never did get married. You weren't allowed to
get married and still teach in school.
NP: You weren't allowed to get married?
BP: Oh, yes, they were allowed to get married, but they
wasn't the marrying type.
HP: You could be married and still be a school teacher
then?
BP: There wasn't very many that were, though. I never
went to a married teacher, no.
HP: Who were your school friends?
EP: The neighbors. The [unclear] were the closest ones.
NP: [unclear]
BP: Of the same connection, but the Graftons lived there
[unclear] next to the bank.
NP: They still live there.
BP: She is still there.
PYLE 33
NP: Did you go visiting and play dolls together and
things like that?
EP: Now, that's a [unclear]. I think it is, and then
the farm house there. This is Edith. She taught
school, but she died.
NP: That's Edith Grafton.
BP: Yes.
NP: You went to school with that--who was that who used
to preach at Hickory?
BP: Arthur Slate.
NP: He was in your class, too.
BP: He wasn't in my class.
NP: Oh, he was younger. -
BP: But you didn't know it till he died. I got a card
from the church and he was born the same day I was,
23rd of January. I didn't know it.
NP: did he always live around here? He came back?
BP: They lived up there on Johnsons Mill Road.
[unclear[
NP: The Forwoods had the canning factory.
BP: Yeah, they were the ones that canned.
NP: Did they sell what they canned?
BP: Yeah.
NP: You know to can, too, don't you?
BP: Yes. You can't get many of your cans that size.
People don't want to buy that size anymore.
NP: What did you do with your friends? Did your brother
PYLE 34
have friends, too, in those days?
EP: Oh, yes. After he got through with [unclear] he went to high school and [unclear] and when he graduated from high school he went to work for [unclear] for seven dollars a week.
NP: He went to Bel Air High School?
BP: Yeah, and he walked.
NP: Not very many people went to high school.
BP: Not a lot, no.
NP: Did the girls go?
BP: Yeah, girls went. The Hodges girls went to high school. [unclear]
MB: Helen and Adell were teachers.
NP: That's what mostly the women did would be teachers or get married.
BP: Because you went to Eel Air High School and you didn't have took an examination. You didn't have [unclear]. Those days you could go into teaching right out after. And they were good teachers. They turned out some very good teachers.
NP: So that's what mostly the girls did when they grew up.
BP: Yeah. If they didn't get married, they taught school.
ME: Mrs. Pyle, you mentioned earlier that your brother Tom was born in 1897 and that he was one of twins. What happened to the twin?
PYLE 35
BP: Well, he had [unclear].
NB: He was just weak, I suppose. Now, he was the oldest
twin. I just remember --
NP: You were only six years old. That was at home that
your mother had the twins.
MB: Oh, yes. You never heard of anybody going to the
hospital back in those days.
MP: What did you do when [unclear]? Did they make you
go outside?
BP: I guess I did. I was at my grandfather's. I
remember my father coming over and saying, "We've
got twins." Mame, do you remember that?
MB: No.
MP: did the doctor come or did somebody come and help
her?
BP: Oh, yes. We had a doctor and had a woman to care of
her.
ME': And what did the other little boy die of?
BP: [unclear].
NP: There was another name you were saying.
MB: [unclear]. The thing as deterioration, I suppose.
I don't know. You don't hear of it anymore.
NP: Mrs. Pyle and Name, too, what was it like when you
got electricity? Did everybody rush to get
electricity when it came through?
BP: No.
NP: Did you have to pay?
PYLE 36
NB: Oh, yes, you had to pay. Of course, I don't very
much recall when they put it in. We was a long back
off the road. But I think they put in all the poles
to a hundred feet, didn't they?
NP: Then you got electric lights?
NB: We got lights. That's when it come along and we
could afford it.
NP: Could everybody afford it?
MB: No. [unclear] lived a good long while. Uncle Jim
got sick and --
HP: What was the first thing you got for the electric?
The first appliance?
BP: I guess the washing machine was the first thing.
NP: Before that you had to wash on the wash board.
BP: Yeah, the washboard.
NP: People came to sell these appliances?
EP: Yeah, [unclear]'s father was the one that come
around selling washing machines. [unclear]
NB: [unclear]
HP: That was a ringer kind of washing machine?
BP: No, it was a spinner.
MB: Just like the one I have now. Well, I have a
spinner now. So after they got a new one and I got
the old one. Then I used it here till it wore out
and then I bought a used one.
NP: But it wasn't the kind of the ringer.
NB: Oh, no.
PYLE 37
NP: What was it like?
NB: It was the cone in it and you put the clothes in
it. Then the lever you pushed and it spins it
around and spins the water back into the tub.
NP: That was a big improvement then, wasn't it?
NB: Oh, yes.
NP: They last a long time.
BP: Yeah, something happened to mine.
NP: Did you get lots of appliances then? Did people
start buying them?
BP: Well, we were the first ones, I guess. I don't
remember who got electric before we did.
NP: You were married then.
BP: Yes.
NB: [unclear]
NP: Was he afraid of fire?
BP: He would imagine things, you know. My brother, when
they got electric he didn't very much approve of it,
did he?
ME': You never did get electricity in your church.
BP: No.
NB: And we're not going to have it.
NP: Do you ever see people that you used to know? What
happened to Judge Watters and all those people?
BP: Oh, he's been dead years.
NP: Do you ever see any of his children or did you know
them?
PYLE 38
BP: He had a grandson that used to come once in awhile, but he hasn't been down there for a good while. Now, he lived up north. Somebody a year ago wanted to know--we always send him a card and one time we were down there, it was when we were [unclear], and he came in and I said to him--his mother's name was Maine, and I said--he said, "You don't know me," and I said --
End of Interview
MB = Miss Mary Barrow (Maine), Mrs. Pyle's sister. [this tape is very difficult to understand]